Piece Together
by chezchuckles
Summary: A short post-ep for Secret Santa, 5x09. For muppet 47 and her willingness to share with me some of her own Christmas cheer: pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.


**Piece Together**

* * *

_what is done is done-  
piece together what's been broken.  
can you ever give up someone?  
a better life is waiting;  
__a better life is waiting.  
_-Better Life, Paper Route

* * *

Kate curled her hair behind her ears and hunched into her coat as she walked, still debating the whole way.

_But they have families_ and the careful, measured look on his face, everything held back with that understanding smile he had, the one that reassured, soothed, let her off the hook.

Every time.

She'd panicked and bailed out. She knew that. He knew it and was willing to let her parachute over the cold, frozen plains of her own sorrow on a solitary and moonless night.

She wasn't willing anymore. She wanted back _in_. Even if it meant over-the-top and spectacular and loud. She wasn't afraid of loud - it was the silence and those closed boxes and a winter that seeped into her bones.

Like tonight.

But she trudged through the thin layer of slushy snow, knocked it off the tops of her boots when she got to the subway station. She went quickly down the stairs, her fingers pressed deep into her coat pockets, coming out only to swipe her card and go through the turnstile.

She made herself a smaller target as she waited on the platform, the press of her weapon at her back as she wondered whether or not she should just go home first - shed the last few days roiling anxiety like they were merely work clothes and not something deeper, something untouchable.

This would be the wrong platform if she were going home. This would be the wrong night and the wrong time of year and the worst of attitudes-

The train came through just then, the wind tunneling around her and driving the cold deeper, but Kate stepped up to the line, waited for her moment to board. The doors opened and the exchange of commuters began, people flowing off and on, even as late as now. She hesitated, on the balls of her feet for action but unable to commit.

She only slipped inside the moment before the doors could close.

* * *

The sway of the train was ultimately soothing, but at the next stop when the doors opened, a woman and her little girl brushed past Kate, packages and bags bulging, the daughter quiet and obviously tired.

Kate stood to give them her spot, fingers curled at the bar as the mother shot an appreciate thanks Kate's way and herded the girl into the seat. The daughter's dark hair was wild with static and the bulk of her coat, and the mother stood before the girl with all their purchases at her feet, stroking her fingers softly through that raven hair.

Kate turned her head away and pressed her cheek to the back of her hand as she hung on to the bar. The train eased away from the station, picked up speed and hurtled down the darkness of the line, the interior cars lit and unrelenting in their light, but Kate kept her eyes closed.

She could hear the girl's high-voiced interrogatives and the mother's murmuring responses, could almost make out the ceaseless and unending nature of the child's curiosity even without the words. Kate couldn't help casting a look their way. The tall, dark-haired mother was answering, rubbing her thumb over the daughter's eyebrow, fingers framing her cheekbone.

Kate's mother used to do that. Press her thumb into Kate's eyebrow, angling her face up to have Kate look her in the eye and speak the truth. The shiver of authority and love, the demand of expectation and the mercy of the court - all in her mother's gaze.

So why was Kate letting her mother down now? Standing rigidly inside the train that took her farther and farther from her watch, her one honoring, steadying, life-saving Christmas tradition.

"Mommy, he will _so_ love it," the little girl sighed. "Won't he? Daddy will love it."

"Of course he will. It's from you."

Kate sucked in a breath and shut down the swirl of snow in her mind's eye, like a disturbed globe of some family scene, not meant to be touched.

But it was too late. The scene cleared, but the small body between them was indistinct and hazy, still seen through years despite the thin, small hand in his.

_Daddy will love it._

Hers weren't the only traditions here; this wasn't something she could pretend to be alone in anymore. She couldn't wall herself off, not after all the work that went into clearing it away.

And years from now-

Her tradition had to change sometime. It was bound to change.

Why not tonight?


End file.
